The battlefield environment is often unpredictable and consistently presents challenges for the development of physical protective measures required to protect against various threat levels. The challenges of the battlefield environment place extreme demands on the performance of protective building structures designed for use in combat. Specifically, protective building structures in such environments must combine high performance capabilities, to withstand heavy explosive forces, with ease of assembly under extreme and unpredictable conditions.
Overhead protection structures have been developed to provide protection from overhead ordinance detonations. Such overhead protection structures have also been developed as modular systems to address the specific requirements of the battlefield environment. Specifically, modular systems allow structures to be packaged for delivery to a field location for assembly. However, construction resources are often limited and environmental conditions in the battlefield are often unpredictable making assembly of such systems challenging.
United States Patent Publication No. 2011/0226166 describes a blast protection system designed to be built around an existing structure in order to provide it with additional protection from explosive forces. The blast protection system comprises a support frame, a blast cover made of concrete panels, and a burster screen. The blast protection system requires concrete panels to be placed on the support frame to provide protection from overhead blasts from explosive shells, rockets, and the like. The concrete panels may be pre-formed or constructed on site and may be up to about 20 cm in thickness. The protective structures are described as reaching up to 20 meters in width, making high-mass, high-logistics resources necessary for its construction.
While modular protective building structures, similar to that described in United States Patent Publication No. 2011/0226166, provide relatively predictable levels of protection, these systems present significant logistical constraints due to their size and weight. As a result, there continues to be a need for protective building structures that can be rapidly assembled with little or no construction support and that are adaptable to unpredictable conditions.
This background information is provided for the purpose of making known information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily against the present invention.